Microsoft is set to fire up its updating engine for Windows Phone in Q1 next year, according to a tweet published by renowned Twitter account @Football4PDA. The account was the named source for the leaked images of the HTC Accord (HTC 8X), as well as a number of other headlines that have been published along the way to Windows Phone 8.

The tweet in question claims Microsoft will release an update for its recently launched mobile platform at the beginning of next year, and will be titled Apollo+. While there's little to back up said claims, it's likely to turn out to be true. We're not entirely certain what could be included in such an update to Windows Phone 8, but it would make for a welcomed gift post-holiday season for those who have recently invested in a new Windows Phone.

Notifications Centre could well be on the list of included features and functionality, as well as separate volume controls, not to mention the number of bug fixes and improvements that will surely be applied to further smooth out the user experience. Be sure to head on over to our forums to view what the community wants to see added to Windows Phone.

MS is going to roll out update for WP8 which is called Apollo+ in Q1 2013...

Microsoft pushed out the NoDo update for Windows Phone 7 in Q1 2011 - though many had issues with carriers delaying the rollout. We wouldn't be surprised if the company had a windows Phone 8 update planned for the new year. What's more is that all updates pushed out by Microsoft should be sent out OTA (Over-The-Air) to consumers- no need to plug the device into a computer.

Update: According to The Verge, Microsoft has a number of improvements on the horizon for Windows Phone. The Apollo+ update could include VPN support to enable connectivity with systems, which has been missing since the Windows Mobile days. A WiFi connection patch is also in the pipeline to allow connections to remain active (something which Joe Belfiore mentioned recently), as well as some audio enhancements.

I completely agree with the calendar improvement. Or allow 3rd party developers to create robust calendar apps without limitations. Right now my wife's Iphone has a 3rd party calendar app that smokes anything I can find on my WP8. Trust me, I have several calendar apps (eg: VSysCalendar, Week View, etc) and none of them are fully functional. They are nice add-ons but they are not robust. I'm still all in with WP but after 2+ years, my patience is wearing thin.

My patience has already worn thin, had a Samsung Omnia 7 since it first arrived, great phone. Now got iPhone 5, best decision I could make! (not dissing MS as I love WP as an OS) I may come back to WP, but with the lack of third party apps (still), its a blessing I can get all the apps I require on iOS. When they're made for WP and big developers take WP seriously, im coming back, but in the mean time, technology moves to fast to still be waiting.

"technology moves to fast to still be waiting."
You should mention that to Apple. Every phone release lately has just been a spec bump in their lineup. No true innovation, except for possibly Siri (which is debatable). Sure, Microsoft may not have the apps, but I think they have the tech that Apple is missing, especially with hardware devs like Nokia pushing the envelope.

I don't disagree with you regarding the phone, but for me personally, it's about the apps I can use rather than the phone. I love the Nokia 920 and think its specs kick Apples arse, I just wish it had the ecosystem/developer apps now that would complement a great phone and OS.

I agree, though what I'm looking for is a feature enhancement more than a fix. With Office 365 being a powerful - and I expect popular - way to manage your information, it would really be nice if the appointment categories (and their colors), as well as shared calendars, could be seen on the phone, so you have a seemless experience between Outlook, OWA, and your phone. To me, that's the most significant update that's missing.

I still don't understand why they haven't added it back after it was included in the pre-release 7003 build. Seems like one of the easiest things to re-add, especially since the homescreen doesn't have a landscape mode anyway.

The only phone that has screen rotation lock is dell venue pro. I can't appreciate how useful it is when viewing web pages. Oh and it has portrait keyboard too =] I plan to hold on to it for as long as venue pro like phones come along.

1920x1080p resolution support, notification center (although I don't care deeply for one at this time), swipe-to-close gesture when using multitasking view to quickly close out certain applications, WiFi calling, DirectX support (which was touted during the initial press conference for Windows Phone 8 earlier in 2012), and an assortment of fixes for freeze bugs and improved battery life. I've also noticed WP8 devices such as the Lumia 920 bootup considerably slower than WP7 devices. I did a restart test against a Samsung Galaxy S3 and my Lumia 920 lost by about 10 seconds! However, my old Titan 2 beat the S3 by nearly 10 seconds. What has happened to WP8!?

I would lke to see separate volume controls and a notification center. Also, are current WP8 users wiling to wait that long for bug fixes? Seems it would be best if they rolled out bug fixes sooner (depending on how widespread and severe they are).

I see both working together without any issues. Live tiles are great for a quick glance, but notification center can provide greater detail, and can show updates for all the apps in one place. It's also beneficial for apps (offering push notification) that are not pinned to the Start screen. So, I think both can co-exist without causing redundancy.

can we get past this already? Live tiles are basically widgets with rules. Most of them aren't that different than the counter badges iOS has used for years, and even iOS eventually saw the need for a centralised notification center.
Just this weekend I had multiple instances of "why did my phone just beep?", and none of my tiles were showing anything.

I'd prefer a swipe down from the top of the screen. Then it can be available as an overlay from anywhere, not just as part of your home screen. Like you get a notification and you can drag it down into a feature-rich notification center. Maybe app-specific notification extension too. Eg pull down a text notification to see a little text history and a basic reply box. When no notification is visibile, swipe down in similar fasion to how you access things on a win 8 tablet. Then you get a list of notifications and can drill in to the simple extensible actions for IM, etc. I'd much rather that than overloading the home screen with functionality.

Heck... WP8 actually does one better. If you tap on any phone number in a website, etc... it actually copies and pastes it dierectly into the dialer for you and dials the number!
E-mail seems to work slightly different. If you tap a number in an e-mail, it opens the number up as a contact. You can then click the Call this Number option to place the call.
I actually used this the other day. I was looking up the number for a local store and told my wife to grab a pen so she could write the number down. On a whim I decided to try and tap the phone number from the website and sure enough it started dialing!!!
Pretty slick!

Live tiles are useful, but are limited in their purpose. A notification center can show greater detail and can also show all the notifications in one place. Moreover, users may opt to not pin certain apps to the start screen, and a notification center would (should) be able to gather updates for such apps as well. So, I would argue both - live tiles and notification center would perfectly complement each other. Just my thought on the matter - as you can see, I'm pro notification center! :)

I'm thinking half-press volume button to bring down menu, and then swipe down from the top of the screen, pushing the menu away and revealing old notifications. If you don't want them anymore, just swipe them away!

I know this sounds a lot like iOS, but the iOS-way is just really annoying especially when you're playing games on a smaller screen and you swipe twice from the edge and the game pauses >

+1 and Blutooth, wifi, and NFC could be put on the notification pivot (it should be the left pivot) so you can get to everything easily.
Right now to get to wifi, you have eitehr pin a 3rd party app or the system screen to the start page. It's a hassle. Android handles it much better with the nice top drag down. I'm a windows fan, but if we are honest the notification on android is better.
A left pivot would do the trick just as nicely as the top down for android.

So how about this scenario, you here a notification sound on your phone but dont look at it right that second/minute and when you go to see what it was it's gone and nowhere to figure out which app it came from. I'm not talking text messages, phone calls, emails, but more of lets say a sports score from the ESPN ScoreCenter app that sends a notification to my phone when one of my teams scores a TD (real time). If you do not here it or see it with in the window of time it is gone and I mean gone!

I would think it safer to assume they don't care because its not really an issue for them. Personally for me its not an issue yes sometimes it would be nice to see a missed toast but generally if I actually care then that app is pinned and I see an indicator or the text display of the tile has updated. That is the point of the live tile system. The problem is not really ms or the is its devs that are doing straight ports fom other platforms and not using this platforms unique features. Case in point weather app. I would like to know about the weather fairly regularly so its pinned and at the top it normally displays the current temp and flips with the local radar image if I get a sever alert and mis the toast I see a nice badge indicating sever weather along with the current temp whose background reflects the condition outside and whose back tile shows the radar pretty mch everything a notification center would show and pretty much the same info contained in the toast for the most part this is all the info I desire but f I want more then tap the tile and when opened its UI is up to date with relevant info and the ability to dive into more detail. see a properly written app for the platform removes the need for notifications. If your app does not show what you want talk to its developer most of us listen to users or at least should its how we make a living

correct me if I'm wrong but if it meant that much to you wouldn't you pin the ESPN tile to the Start Screen and it would show there's a little 1 in the corner to tell you there's a notification so you open the app?? I think that's the argument against having a notification center.

While it's certainly a workaround, there are a couple of issues with that argument -
1) It's telling people what to do with their Start screen. This defeats the purpose of personalization. Users should be able to leave apps off the Start screen but still leverage their push notification capablities. This becomes especially useful for less-often used apps (in my case - Flight Aware and Parcel Tracking). I (and I'm sure many others) don't want to constantly pin-unpin apps just to leverage push notification.
2) Live tiles do not offer details regarding the updates. Most apps show either the latest update, or, a number indicating an update. This is where a notification center becomes very effective. It shows all the updates (and the details regarding each update) that happened across all apps (pinned or unpinned) in one location.
This is why I feel both - live tiles and a notification center, are essential.

Apps with push notification, if not pinned to start screen, you won't know if you had any. That's the issue. They show up and disappear. So there is a need for some kind of notification center, unless MS can come up with something else.

Thank you. I don't understand why other people don't get this! Currently the CNN app (for WP7) does toast notifications for breaking news but even with the live tile the app doesn't tell you that it just tried to notify you. If you don't check in time, that breaking news toast notification is gone forever.

You're right - regarding the CNN breaking news toast notification - apparently it's the only way to show the "breaking news" marquee in the app. If you miss the toast notification, you can't just open the app to see the breaking news. It truly is gone forever! Wish CNN would fix this in a future update.

I said this above, but a timeline style list of toast notifications would be cool. Just a place that collects and keeps the toasts. Make it work like the texts list. Where new and untapped toasts are highlighted and tapped ones are muted, select to delete individual toasts or clear the lot.

I'm confused about seperate volume controls. My Lumia 920 volume controls seem to fnction differently than my Titan and Dell venue pro before it.
It used to be that my phone volume was the same for music and alert volume. Now however it's different. When I connect to my car via bluetooth for music, the volume is different than my call or alert volume. Aren't those seperate volume controls? Quite frankly I prefered the simpler WP7 way.

This is a FEATURE I love! I use car Bluetooth at volume 30, office Bluetooth at volume 10, and the phone remembers the setting. Now I'm don't have to worry about blowing up my Bluetooth office speaker when I connect my phone right after leaving my car.

Yeah, noticed the same thing. I just got an 8X this past Friday and noticed something that I didn't really see discussed much. I use my phone to play music over bluetooth in my car a lot, and on my previous phone, the Trophy, as most people know there was no way to have a separate volume for bluetooth audio. What I've noticed on this phone so far, though, is that there IS separate volume. Typically, with my Trophy, I'd turn the volume up to like 20 or 22 when playing music on bluetooth, then when I'd get out of the car I'd immediately turn it down to my normal setting of 12. Well, I went to do that this weekend with my 8X, turn the volume down when I got out of the car, but it was already back at 12. Then when I went somewhere else and listened to music again, it was already back up at 22.

A more complete backup and restore feature. If i restore on a different device, settings, start screen, texts, pictures, videos should be on my new phone.

Right now, not all the settings are restored, only some of them. I should be able to replicate right away what my previous settings and look were onto a new phone, yes, it will take more time, but that is the easiest to set-up your phone i fyou lose or your phone is defective.

Apollo's version of NoDo, I'm sure. (Don't expect any real features, folks.) There always seems to be those little bugs that were missed in beta but that urgently need to be changed. Kid's Corner, much?

Please add a notification center! PLEASE! I hope they make it so you can swipe to the right on the homescreen to pull out a notification center much like swiping to left brings up all the apps. I also would like for them to add the ability to swipe up or down on apps when in the multitaksing veiw to close apps. If they add those two features i'll be extremely happy.
P.S. We also need nokia drive for all windows phone 8 devices to be rolled out!

I can play music in my Ford Focus just fine. I've benen able to do it with all of my phones including the iPhone, all of my android phones and my Lumia 920. By the way, the audio system is powered by Microsoft Sync. It's so compatible.

+1. I never understood why they don't let me enable/disable vibrate mode directly. I always have to go into the setting menu. Currently you can tap on the bell sign to turn on or off the sound. They should just add two more states like this:
- sound on, vib off
- sound off, vib on
- sound on, vib on
- sound off, vib off

Live Tiles do exactly what the app developer allows them to do. No more, no less. You need only look at Amazing Weather to realize how good they can be or Phone Dialer for how minimal. The point is, if you don't like a live tile, make it bigger, or contact the developer of that app and request it.

If they call it Apollo + (reads as Apollo plus), then it technically doesn't end in an "-O" which was their previous naming convention. They should call it "Ocho" or Apollo ocho" to keep up with the naming convention and keep with the Windows 8 branding. (Ocho means 8).

I have my money bet on this: If they do a notification center, then it will be a live wallpaper that has a companion app so you can set a picture as the backdrop for the notification center live wallpaper.

DO we really have to wait until Feb-March 2013 to get the basic bug fixes. UUGH!. I won't be able to play purchased video from XBOX Video store until then.... I would rather have bug fixes sooner and features later.

There are a couple basics I would like to see.
1. The ability to have the phone keep notifiing me that there is a text message or voice mail until I have acknowledged it. This was on my IPhone 3g. If my phone is downstairs and I am up stairs and don't here it or if I have stepped away from my office and get a text, I would be nice for the phone to keep trying to let me know I missed it.
2. A decent calendar. I have seen a couple apps that are close but still a no go. I would like to be able to actually read the calendar. I have mulitple accounts that for different things. The calendar needs to beable to let me edit and see the different accounts in different colors. I have work for on account/color, than personal and family that me and my wife can both access and edit. With kids this for me is a must to keep everything in order.
3. Finally, a nice simple, easy to use music player. I don't play games and all the other stuff. I just want a simple music player.
So far that is all.

Regarding #1 ... they did. It's called a live tile. See all those numbers next to the icons? ;) Not being a smartass, just saying that's the design paradigm, and they're not going to change it unless/until they implement a full notification hub.

Regarding #2 ... yes. The Calendar app is atrocious.

Regarding #3 ... that's one good thing WP has going for it already. It is very simple to play music on it. And buy music on it. Many, simple options. It's getting your existing music ONTO the phone that's annoying, but if you came from iPhone, you have an easier time since it's probably all in iTunes and you don't have to change anything.

I don't understand #2... this works just fine in Agenda view. Different colors for different calendars and everything.

#3 doesn't make any sense to me either... the music player is awesome, and not tied into games at all, right? It can access videos, but it's just one selection branch after clicking on music and video to get to music.

Yes, a form of Play To should be baked into Windows Phone 8, and should support all DLNA devices, not just "Microsoft Certified" ones like the Surface RT has. (My Sony Blu-ray player has DLNA and I use it regularily, but I can't use it with either my phone or tablet, which is a little frustrating to me.)

In the text message/chat window, I'd like to know what phone number the text came from, or sending to. If a contact has multiple phone numbers, you only see the name, but no idea which number it came from.

Messaging will ONLY allow texting to their "mobile" number, so there really isn't much confusion unless the user has contacts duplicated on your phone (and shouldn't the user be responsible for cleaning those up). Although, I have seen people have their mobile number on Skype and Facebook that was listed incorrectly (forgot to update numbers, etc.), and that will list a duplicate mobile number. I find it easier to remind that person to fix or remove it, to be honest... they usually appreciate the reminder.

Knowing it will only text to mobile numbers, you can tap on the name and see the full contact details and immediately know what number to use.

I need many improvements to editing, formatting and viewing documents in Word for WP8. They could take a look at Mobile Word as it was years ago on Windows Mobile, or at QuickOffice for iOS and Android. I need to be able to adjust font-size by points, not just "bigger" and "smaller". A few standard font choices would be nice along with line-spacing and more paragraph formatting. I also need to be able to view a document in an un-mobilized form, with word-wrap turned off so that I can see what my document will look like when the recipient opens it in Word, and/or prints it out. I also need to be able to either edit old .doc files, or convert them to .docx files within the phone. Word may be "free" on WP but it's ridiculously limited and embarrassing to show iPhone/Android users. That's frustratingly ironic, given that Word and WP are both Microsoft products.

Yes I have. And Word and Excel seem to work fine through IE10. However, forget trying to edit Onenote. For kicks and giggles, I went to my local Att store and played with the HTC OneX+, logged into my live account via the browser and found that I could use and edit Word, Excel and Onenote much easier. I was disappointed with my browser at that point. MS has alot of work to do with alot of things to improve. The browser needs more plugins to view and manipulate more pages efficiently. I would be happy if I could view everything my wife can on her Iphone4 at least. I love my WP. The layout and efficiency with the design are fantastic. Come on MS, time to deliver.

^^^THIS..... I cannot believe they discontinued ZUNE for the broken joke of Xbox music on WP8. No Podcast support unless in the MP??? Crappy No-sync of music and playlists and not even being able to open an mp3 file in IE10. WTH! Tell me to install Itunes to download podcasts! Its insane what they've done. Can't play Video I bought in Zune! I'm still carrying my T-II just to listen to podcast.... They need to get this right. I know people taking phones back because they can't listen to their voicemail mp3's.

And incidentally, I'm not a coder but as a fairly technical person, I believe that half of those could be done with one developer spending a week on them (including planning and testing). The other half, a small group of developers could do them within a business quarter.

Agree, seems those things would be drag and drop modules by now based on how commonplace they are... Some decent developer should be able to compile those on short order. Only thing I can think of would be IP rights on how those tasks are accomplished. They are actually copyrighting code now and before code, they will copyright a process on how to accomplish a task, so it's hard for many people to find an alternate method, and even when they do, they get sued for copyright infringement and have to spend millions defending their alternate methods. Half the time its cheaper to license the current methods... Sad world that Apple has created with IP lawsuits for everything.

No WAV file support. Seriously? I didn't know that. I have plenty of stuff in WAV format still. You seriously saying that I can't play that music on my Windows PHone? Which I have yet to purchase yet. Still deciding?

I can't imagine why you need to play a .wav file on a phone when there are far less memory-consuming options. Time to do some media conversions, I reckon!
I love my Lumia 920 but there are two MAJOR things wrong with the support for Win8 Phone:
#1 - No all-in-one media management solution (like Zune Player was until they took the app store out of it). Windows Media Player is the best of a bad bunch but using Nokia Music or allowing XBox Music to run with my phone totally screws up my media library, with genres being altered (wrongly), artists and album info being altered (wrongly) and missing artwork that is actually embedded into the mp3 file itself! My library was organised into about 20 genres...after copying what I wanted over to my phone and running Nokia Music, I had over 40 genres and half the info was wrong or missing. Microsoft need their very own iTunes...the Nokia Desktop app looks like a Commodore Amiga program from 1995 and syncing files is not as automated as it would seem. Zune Player worked perfectly well and they have removed it without offering one fully-functional alternative. Poor show.
#2 - Apps - while I don't need 500 "Daily thought from the Bible" apps, the kind that bump up the numbers for the iOS and Android stores, Microsoft haven't done a great job of getting some of the most useful apps ported. BBC iPlayer, for example. I think anyone who installs more than 50 apps on their phone is installing for the sake of installing (I mean, how many do you really need to use/can actually use regularly?) WP8 does a great job of bringing social networking and email together and I rarely use the twitter or FB apps anyway...but they (MS) needed to speculate to accumulate. More people will migrate to the superior WP8 OS if they know their iPhone apps will be there when they do. I've had WP7/7.5 before so I haven't had many grumbles but it would be annoying to get a better phone (if I had been on Android, for example) but miss out on a few obviously popular apps.